If you read our USB 3.0 host controller roundup you might've noticed the Renesas µD720201 as one of the contestants. Back then we had to rely on a reference card, but now Buffalo has launched a retail card based on Renesas latest generation of USB 3.0 host controllers.

If you read our USB 3.0 host controller roundup you might've noticed the Renesas µD720201 as one of the contestants. Back then we had to rely on a reference card, but now Buffalo has launched a retail card based on Renesas latest generation of USB 3.0 host controllers.

Buffalo is making some bold performance claims and they've compared the Renesas µD720201 to the good old NEC µD720200 which quickly became the standard USB 3.0 host controller, as it was the only option up until early this year. Buffalo used one of its 12TB quad-drive USB 3.0 DriveStation's to test its new IFC-PCIE4U3S host controller card with and the company claims sequential read speeds of 371MB/s compared to 305MB/s for the NEC host and sequential write speeds of 322MB/s compared to 226MB/s.

We're not quite sure how Buffalo managed to hit these kinds of speeds, but we haven't had the opportunity to test a quad-drive DriveStation and as such we don't know what the internals are either. The only place we managed to find a price for the IFC-PCIE4U3S was in Japan where it's listed for 4,200 Yen (S$69) which is extremely expensive for a USB 3.0 host controller; although we'd expect it to be cheaper in other parts of the world once it becomes available.